8-‐Year Vision Update October 2013
Table of Contents Executive Summary .............................................................................................................................................................................. 3 Background ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 5 Educational Goals .................................................................................................................................................................................. 5 Enrollment Growth ................................................................................................................................................................ 6 Ensuring Access ..................................................................................................................................................................... 7 Student Support ..................................................................................................................................................................... 7 Academic Programs ............................................................................................................................................................... 7 Academic Enrichment ........................................................................................................................................................... 8 Research Goals ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 9 Faculty .................................................................................................................................................................................... 9 Clinical and Translational Research ................................................................................................................................... 10 Funding ................................................................................................................................................................................. 10 Healthcare Goals .................................................................................................................................................................................. 10 High Acuity Care and Interprofessional Areas .................................................................................................................. 10 Partnerships ......................................................................................................................................................................... 11 Infrastructure and Support Needs ................................................................................................................................................. 12 Tuition .................................................................................................................................................................................. 12 Philanthropy ........................................................................................................................................................................ 12 Strategic Academic, Research, and Service Development Fund ....................................................................................... 12 Student Quality-‐of-‐Life Facilities ........................................................................................................................................ 12 Research Facilities ............................................................................................................................................................... 13 Academic Facilities .............................................................................................................................................................. 14 Economic Impact and Return on Investment .................................................................................................................... 14 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 15
2 8 Year Vision Update
October, 2013
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In the summer of 2011 we outlined a bold 8-‐year vision and plan for the future of what was then Georgia Health Sciences University (GHSU). A few months later, the University System of Georgia (USG) Board of Regents (BOR) announced their decision to consolidate GHSU with Augusta State University (ASU), a proximate public masters-‐level university. The January 2013 consolidation created Georgia Regents University (GRU), the newest and one of only four public comprehensive research universities in the state. While we honor the legacies of our former institutions, we recognize and are determined to seize the unprecedented opportunities presented by this consolidation. As the state’s only public academic health center (AHC) combined with a primarily undergraduate liberal arts university, we are uniquely positioned to provide leadership and innovation while fulfilling our tripartite mission of education, research, and clinical care to the benefit of our students, our region, and our state. Leveraging the programs that differentiate us from other institutions, we intend to become a destination of choice and prime provider of opportunity for students, faculty and health care providers to pursue their educational and professional goals. In short we aim to be the next great American university, with an immediately recognizable distinction in the biomedical sciences and health professions. In this report, we highlight some of the accomplishments achieved since the original 8-‐year vision was defined, and we integrate new goals arising from the consolidation. Original Vision Accomplishments (August 2011) (through June 2013) Education Goals: • Opened three medical residential clinical campuses (Albany, Savannah, and Rome). 1. Utilize a hub-‐and-‐spoke model for advanced • Expanded student educational experiences from 660 health professions education, emphasizing sites in 2011 to 1,031 affiliation sites today. expanding partnerships to enhance student • Consolidation of GHSU and ASU resulted in the enrollment and educational delivery. creation of a proximate/small university with a 2. Determine the optimal structure for the state’s strong AHC. only public AHC. • Achieved health sciences graduate enrollment 3. Achieve a strategic 25 percent graduate increases of 10.6 percent since fall 2010. enrollment increase across an evolving • Increased enrollment in health sciences programs academic program array. that align with projected future needs in Georgia. 4. Focus strategic faculty increases to support • Initiated the Augusta Gateway Program and East academic program growth and maintain Georgia State College Partnership to maintain access accreditations. for local students who do not meet GRU regular 5. Align the academic program array to state admissions requirements. workforce needs. • Began construction on the J. Harold Harrison, M.D. Education Commons Building, supported with both state and private funding, to open in fall 2014. • Initiated new academic programs that capitalize on the synergy between GHSU and ASU, including the BS to MD program. • Was awarded in record time a Confucius Institute in partnership with the Chinese government, the first in the U.S. to be focused on Traditional Chinese Medicine; and began the training of Chinese physicians and nursing students. Research Goals: • Hired 52 new (and an additional 44 replacement) research faculty between FY11 and FY13. 1. Move into the top 50 medical schools in research • Research funding has increased by 6 percent ($83.6
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October, 2013
funding by: • Recruiting an additional 100 new research faculty. • Doubling our research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). 2. Building the second National Cancer Institute (NCI)-‐designated cancer center in Georgia. 3. Increasing our research space to accommodate new faculty. 4. Expand our economic impact through commercialization of research discoveries.
million) since FY10. Launched the Institute of Public and Preventive Health. Hired first VP of Clinical and Translational Sciences. Initiated the design of a new research building with $10 million in private funding support. Increased the number of active clinical trial protocols in cancer by 54 percent and the total contract value in cancer by 36 percent since FY11. Increased GRU Cancer Center grant funding by 13 percent and patient volume by 7.3 percent (between FY12 and FY13). Increased overall revenue from intellectual property (invention disclosures by 21.6 percent, incubator revenue by 146 percent, and licensing revenue by 49.1 percent). Obtained approval and began the design of a new Cancer Research Building to commence construction in fall 2015, which will provide additional cancer space and free up research facilities for other researchers, with $45 million in general obligation bonds and $12 million in philanthropy. Increased advanced and complex care by 17.2 percent since FY10. Improved Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Appropriate Care measures by 9.4 percent since FY10. Achieved Advanced Comprehensive Stroke Center designation (first in Georgia/13th in the nation) by Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations. Expanded rural outreach efforts, including direct patient care and consultative assistance to rural hospitals. Signed unique $350 million/15-‐year partnership agreement with Philips, the first of its kind in the world. Coordinated health care to 50,000 Georgia inmates in FY13, at a cost savings to the state of $8 million Entered agreement to assist the state in managing the Warm Springs Roosevelt Hospital.
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Clinical Goals:
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1. Increase advanced and complex (specialized • and cutting-‐edge) clinical services. 2. Achieve top performance in quality for AHCs. 3. Create a broader regional footprint through • expanded partnerships.
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We have achieved these results both through our own focused planning and intentional efforts, including building a Strategic Academic, Research, and Service Development fund with internal redirection of resources, and with the generous support of the state and private philanthropic giving.
4 8 Year Vision Update
October, 2013
BACKGROUND The original 8-‐year vision and plan for GHSU, presented in summer of 2011, focused on the education, research, and clinical components of Georgia’s only public AHC and health sciences university. These areas remain critically important to the future of GRU and provide the foundation for the strategic direction of the new university. In January 2012 the USG BOR announced four institutional consolidations across the state, including combining GHSU and ASU with the intent to create the fourth comprehensive research university in Georgia. In December 2012, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACS-‐COC) approved the consolidation, and in January 2013, the BOR affirmed that decision. On January 8, 2013, Georgia Regents University was officially established. Combining the disparate cultures of a primarily undergraduate liberal arts university with a predominately graduate level health sciences and professional enterprise presented both challenges and opportunities. Early on we outlined a new mission: to provide leadership and excellence in teaching, discovery, clinical care, and service as a student-‐centered comprehensive research university and academic health center with a wide range of programs from learning assistance through postdoctoral studies. Our mission represents the best of both former universities and embraces the comprehensive nature of our academic, research, and clinical environment. While we remain committed to the intentions originally outlined in our 8-‐year vision, the consolidation and our new university’s expanded mission present us with new and exciting opportunities. Recognizing that, we engaged early on in a strategic planning process and, with broad, inclusive input of the larger community of faculty and staff, developed a new strategic plan, Transition Forward. The plan is aligned with the three strategic imperatives of the USG: academic excellence and degree completion; economic development and world-‐class research; and accountability, efficiency, and innovation. Following we discuss progress made on our previous commitments, describe where we are today, and project where we will be in 2030.
EDUCATIONAL GOALS Academics are at the core of GRU. As Georgia’s newest comprehensive research university and only public AHC, we recognize that our singular ability to offer educational programs for Georgia’s future health professionals, dentists, physicians, and advanced biomedical researchers is what differentiates us from our peers. We embrace this differentiator What is an Academic Health and will continue to invest in our distinctive presence in these Center? areas, while we increase focus on improving undergraduate An Academic Health Center (AHC) is student success. We believe the strategic alignment and pairing of the combination of: enthusiastic undergraduates with accomplished health sciences teaching and research faculty will provide maximum benefit to all of our stakeholders. Our vision aligns with and supports the USG Strategic Imperative on Academic Excellence and Degree Completion, and our strategic plan focuses on strengthening educational partnerships, increasing access, maintaining affordability, providing flexible degree options, increasing student support, and ensuring the quality of learning. The result will be enrollment growth, the creation of new academic programs, and the building of a larger corps of instruction.
• A medical school. • One or more health professions schools or programs such as dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, public health, and allied health. • One or more affiliated hospitals or health systems. • Extensive associated biomedical research programs.
5 8 Year Vision Update
October, 2013
Enrollment Growth Prior to consolidation, GHSU projected that we would deliver education in the health sciences disciplines through two models of instruction, a distributed model for undergraduates and a hub-‐and-‐spoke for graduate and professional students, resulting in a 25 percent increase in enrollment in those disciplines over an eight-‐year period. GRU has an institutional commitment to serve a broader student body, our region, and the state with new undergraduate and graduate programs that leverage the strengths of our business, education, science and mathematics, and liberal arts colleges. We anticipate an enrollment increase of over 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students by fall 2020, which represents an 18 percent increase over Fall 2013 (Table 1). Such growth will be driven by our health sciences differentiator and the significant economic demand for graduates with these types of degrees, and it aligns with enrollment patterns at other consolidated institutions in the U.S. Table 1. Current and Projected Enrollment by Degree Level Fall 2013 Degree Level Fall 2012* Undergraduate
6,245
5,654
Fall 2020 (projected) 7,102
Graduate and First Professional
1,608
1,595
3,044
Graduate and First Professional
1,181
1,219
3,044
Residents (MD/DMD)
523
527
538
9,557
8,995
10,684
Total Students *Represents combined enrollment of ASU and GHSU.
Comparing enrollment numbers for fall 2013 to those of fall 2012, the first year of the consolidation, we observed a reduced number of continuing or returning students (-‐372); however, new freshman, transfers and graduate enrollment was relatively unchanged and health sciences professional enrollment was greater (Figure 1). Importantly, overall credit hours is higher (Figure 2) with the number of new freshmen taking ≥15 credit hours being significantly higher (71 percent fall 2013 vs. 9 percent fall 2012), due in large part to the implementation of a new “4 Years 4 U” tuition plan. Finally, the number of high capability new freshman students (those with a Freshman Index >2,500) increased from 56 percent in fall 2102 to 60 percent in fall 2013.
Figure 1: Total Student Headcount by Level
Total Student Headcount 10,000 8,000 6,000 4,000 2,000 0 Undergraduate*
Graduate
Professional
Dental/Medical Residents
GRU Total
Fall 12
6,092
1,608
1,181
523
9,404
Fall 13 (as of 10/17/13)
5,654
1,219
527
8,995
1,595
Fall 12
Fall 13 (as of 10/17/13)
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October, 2013
Figure 2: Total Credit Hours by Student Level
Total Credit Hours 200,000 150,000 100,000 50,000 0 Undergraduate*
Graduate
Professional
Dental/Medical Residents
GRU Total
Fall 12
71,603
17,206
45,587
14,115
148,511
Fall 13 (as of 10/17/13)
71,243
17,162
47,165
14,301
149,871
Fall 12
Fall 13 (as of 10/17/13)
Ensuring Access To increase access for local students, we also launched two programs: the Augusta Gateway Program and the East Georgia State College (EGSC) partnership. The Augusta Gateway Program is aimed at students who met the previous admissions requirements at ASU but who do not meet the GRU admissions requirements, which are being increased annually in a measured, incremental manner. The program enrolls these students in an associate’s degree program, and provides qualified students a seamless transition to a baccalaureate program. The EGSC partnership is part of our collective commitment to the principles of Complete College Georgia (CCG). It sets up an embedded EGSC campus on our Summerville Campus in Augusta and allows underprepared yet academically qualified students to receive their first two years of instruction within a smaller, supportive environment, then provides seamless transfer to GRU to students who successfully complete their first two years. In the creation of the EGSC partnership we transferred faculty and redirected savings of >$150,000. Student Support At present GRU can provide only limited housing for students, has no structured dining options; and offers limited intramural sports, Greek life, and student engagement programs. The majority of our current undergraduate student population comes from the local area. We expect this demographic to change as more students from across the state learn about and seek to take advantage of our distinctive academic program offerings. In preparation, we initiated and completed a Student Quality-‐of-‐Life Needs Assessment in February 2013, which confirmed that we must enhance our facilities and programmatic offerings to meet future student demand. (Details are provided in “Infrastructure and Support Needs,” later in this report.) The assessment will also provide input to our Master Facilities Plan, which is under development and will assist in determining future facility and infrastructure needs. Our vision embraces the USG Strategic Imperative on Commitment to Accountability and Efficiency by creating appropriate living and learning environments for our students through the effective management of our physical space, where we repurpose current facilities and build only when determined to be a critical priority during the early stages of our institution’s development. Academic Programs GRU is a clear example of Aristotle’s “whole greater than the sum of its parts.” Combining our institutions has enabled academic program planning to take an exciting leap forward and allowed us to create new programs that leverage the best of both institutions, respond to student demand, fulfill societal and public needs, and provide an economic engine for the state. Judicious and thoughtful planning to increase the breadth of undergraduate and graduate programs by 2030 is actively occurring. In the past year, GRU has received approval for bachelor’s degree programs in:
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October, 2013
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Applied Information Systems and Technology, a particular area of interest for our military population; Anthropology; Ecology; and Molecular and Cellular Biology.
Further, we have encouraged academic program leaders to work together to create interdisciplinary and cross-‐ disciplinary program offerings that benefit students and serve Georgia’s future workforce needs. New academic programs or combinations of study include: • • • • •
Certificate in Health Professions Education, MD/MBA, BS to DMD, BS to MD, EdD in Education Innovation.
Academic Enrichment To attract and retain the best and brightest students in the state, we created five presidential scholarships for incoming high-‐potential freshman students. For fall 2013, these scholarships are for in-‐state, Zell Miller HOPE scholarship award recipients and are renewable for a total of four years. They are highly competitive, merit-‐based awards. Our goal is to grow the number of students who receive a full scholarship to 20 freshmen annually. We are aiming to increase the number of such scholarships going forward. As we continue to develop new academic programs, we are also focused on enhancing the student experience in all programs and services GRU offers, expanding such programs as supplemental instructional support, our Honors Program, and Study Abroad opportunities. We launched the Center for Undergraduate Research and Scholarship (CURS) to provide expanded opportunities for research and scholarly activities—an exciting demonstration of the two former institutions’ synergies. These initiatives support the USG Strategic Imperative related to Economic Development and World Class Research, which calls for actions to enlarge the scope of the USG’s contributions to economic development, build community partnerships, expand research efforts and graduate education, and increase international education efforts and programs. Part of academic enrichment includes increasing retention and on-‐time graduation rates for enrolled students. A basic tenet of the CCG initiative is that time is the enemy of college completion, and historic data makes it clear that universities must help students complete their degree programs in a timely manner. In April 2013, in support of CCG, we launched the aforementioned 4 Years 4 U program (http://www.gru.edu/4years4u). This program encourages students to achieve a timely four-‐year graduation and assigns each student an advisor to assist with academic guidance, course registration, and career planning during the first year and a half of college. Freshmen who began in fall 2013 signed a pledge to complete the program, and we saw a dramatic increase in the number of credit hours taken: 71 percent of freshmen in fall 2013 registered for 15 hours or more compared to 9 percent in fall 2012 (Figure 2). With continued monitoring and student support, we expect to significantly increase the number of students graduating in a timely manner.
8 8 Year Vision Update
October, 2013
Educational Partnerships The hub-‐and-‐spoke education model employs branch campuses to Figure 3: Educational Footprint create pipelines and increase access to our programs. The result is an expanded GRU footprint that delivers health professions and medical education to more regions of the state (Figure 3). Today MCG's diverse educational clinical experiences include about 100 urban and rural sites across Georgia, where students experience the full spectrum of medicine, from a complex care hospital to a small town solo practice. In fall 2013, the first seven students enrolled in MCG’s new Northwest Campus in Rome, Ga., where they will spend their clinically intensive third and fourth years. The NW campus joins two other clinical campuses: Southwest Campus based at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, and Southeast Campus based at St. Joseph’s/Candler Health System in Savannah and Southeast Georgia Health System in Brunswick. Our expanding presence in rural Georgia is part of an overall plan to help our state address its physician shortage. GRU’s Global Initiatives program expands our footprint around the world by helping university faculty create an array of partnerships across the globe. To date, three levels have been established: • Friendship Agreements (Level 1) are “one-‐off/short-‐term” experiences that provide an opportunity for faculty and students to explore critical international education issues and connect with colleagues around the globe. • Program-‐Level Collaborations (Level 2) are on-‐going multi-‐year agreements designed to provide opportunities for experts and colleagues in a single field or discipline to develop and advance internationalization initiatives specific to a program or a degree. • Institution-‐Wide Partnerships (Level 3) are on-‐going collaborative arrangements with multi-‐year initiatives and programs that benefit both partners through the development of curricula, research opportunities, and community engagement. In July 2013 GRU was awarded a Confucius Institute, in partnership with Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, by the Chinese Hanban agency, a very competitive designation and award. The GRU Confucius Institute will be an international, one-‐of-‐a-‐kind resource center linked with an AHC. It is an example of a Level 3 institution-‐wide partnership and will provide robust opportunities for students, residents, faculty, staff, and community to learn more about Chinese language, culture, and traditional Chinese medicine. We initiated hosting Chinese physician observers this fall for periods of 4-‐6 weeks and will be hosting the first cohort of student nurses from China in fall 2014. Of note, these international nursing students do not take the place of any U.S. citizens; rather their positions are additional to the existing cohort of students.
RESEARCH GOALS GRU continues to pursue strategic growth in our existing research concentration areas of cancer, neurosciences, and cardiovascular biology; and in our emerging research concentration areas of regenerative/reparative medicine, public and preventative health, and molecular/personalized medicine. Faculty Increases in enrollment, academic programs, partnerships, and research call for increased faculty support. Realizing GRU’s vision will require an approximately 20 percent increase in full-‐time faculty from our current 1,500 by 2030. Recruitment strategies will include identifying and hiring faculty into our existing and emerging
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October, 2013
research concentration areas. GRU has created a new Faculty Development program to help both current and faculty members maximize their professional potential. An interim director, appointed from current faculty, is leading the development of a five-‐year plan that focuses on coordinating and providing support to faculty as educators, scholars, practitioners, and in the development of their careers.
National Cancer Institute (NCI)-‐Designated Cancer Center A key goal of GRU’s expanded research program is to build and become an NCI-‐designated cancer center in Georgia, only the second in the state. To help achieve this, the state of Georgia allocated $10 million in FY2014 to fund cancer research initiatives and $45 million in general obligation bonds to help build a new $75 million comprehensive cancer center. The new center, once built, will provide space to allow expansion of both cancer and non-‐cancer-‐related research initiatives. NCI research awards are also providing support to this effort. By 2030, GRU will be a well-‐ established NCI-‐designated cancer center in Georgia. Clinical and Translational Research GRU will continue its emphasis on basic science through clinical and translational research. As of June 2013, 52 new research faculty were hired. In addition, we recruited a new Vice President of Clinical and Translational Science to help achieve our goal of becoming a top-‐50 AHC in NIH research funding. An expert in designing and implementing clinical trials, this individual will lead the effort to build clinical research activities across the university, and to safely move innovations from the laboratory to application in everyday medicine. As an AHC, creating and supporting an environment of innovation and discovery that yields the next generation of preventative and therapeutic strategies is key to our success. Funding GRU continues to pursue research funding from federal agencies and external funding sources. At the close of the 2012 fiscal year, GHSU had received approximately $74.9 million in research funding, $52.4 million of which came from the NIH. This placed GRU 71st in grants received from the NIH; on the right path, but below where we need to be to remain competitive nationally. As of FY2013, GRU has a total of nearly $83.6 million in research funding, with approximately $53.8 million coming from the NIH. The increased monetary support from extramural funding will continue to positively impact the Augusta and Georgia economies. In addition to these external funds, GRU is supporting all disciplines through a new intramural grants program to fund larger collaborative research efforts and program grant applications. The Office of the President is matching funds provided by the Research Institute to support travel awards and to seed bridge funding for faculty, particularly those in the arts and humanities.
HEALTHCARE GOALS As Georgia’s only public AHC, and a university where more than 30 percent of its budget arises from the Health System, GRU must vigilantly focus on the clinical component of our tripartite mission. In fall 2011, our intentions were to build a distinction in the traditional high acuity realm of AHCs. This meant transforming our medical center into a medical destination for tertiary and quaternary care in strategic interprofessional areas or service lines, developing pipelines and partnerships to help move patients to the medical center, and maintaining a commitment to patient-‐ and family-‐centered care and patient safety. High Acuity Care and Interprofessional Areas To help meet the public health needs of the state, GRU is orienting itself to focus on tertiary/quaternary (aka
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specialized and cutting-‐edge, or complex and advanced care) clinical services at the Augusta campus with primary and acute care to be provided across a broader regional footprint through partnerships. To achieve this, the Georgia Regents Medical Center (GRMC) has created five concentrations or service lines: cancer, cardiovascular, digestive health, perioperative services, neurosciences, and women & children’s. Two key performance indicators of this high acuity care are Case Mix Index (CMI) and annualized complex/advanced care. For FY2012, the CMI was 1.7247, and for FY2013 year-‐to-‐date CMI is 1.8212, placing GRU above the national average of 1.37 and climbing. The annualized number of complex/advanced care cases for FY12 was 3,328 and for FY13 was 3,900. Continuing to increase the CMI and number of complex/advanced care cases is crucial to the financial stability of GRU, and will advance innovative medical procedures created at AHCs and help us become a recognized center for tertiary and quaternary care. In February 2013, the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations designated GRMC as an Advanced Comprehensive Stroke Center, making it the only hospital in Georgia and one of fewer than 20 hospitals nationwide to achieve this designation. It signals we meet all Comprehensive Stroke Center standards and requirements to treat the most complex stroke patients, including 24/7 availability of specialized treatments, staff with the unique education and competencies to care for complex stroke patients, and advanced imaging capabilities. This designation is a significant milestone in our goal to become a recognized center for tertiary and quaternary care. Partnerships Over the past year-‐and-‐a-‐half, GRU has largely concentrated on providing medical services in Georgia and South Carolina’s Central Savannah River Area (CSRA) with significant success. Multiple contracts with the VA encompass both clinical and educational services and generate $1.15 million in annual revenue. Non-‐contractual services provide several million more in revenue each year. GRU also has multiple contracts with Trinity Hospital-‐Augusta, Doctors Hospital-‐Augusta, and Aiken Regional Medical Center. These partnerships provide opportunities for our faculty across multiple specialties to treat patients in these facilities and provide a pipeline for patients needing higher acuity care to come to GRMC and Georgia Regents Medical Associates. We are also expanding our partnerships regionally throughout Georgia. As mentioned earlier, in 2013 we opened our Northwest Campus in Rome, Ga., where third-‐ and fourth-‐year students can now complete clinical training at the famed Harbin Clinic, the Floyd Medical Center, and the Redmond Regional Medical Center. It joins the partnerships already established in Savannah, Brunswick and Albany. In Athens, GRU is the in the process of developing a residency practice for UGA-‐GRU medical partnership students. GRU, through GRMC, currently manages the Georgia War Veterans Nursing Home, located in Augusta, as well as health care services at numerous off-‐site locations, including more than 60 prison facilities throughout the state for the Georgia Department of Corrections. In July, through a new interagency agreement, GRMC began managing the medical hospitals of Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation in order to enhance the delivery of care at its rehabilitation and acute care hospitals. In addition to its academic partnerships, GRU has successfully pursued corporate partnerships that benefit its health care system and education mission. GRMC signed a 15-‐year alliance with Philips to facilitate the delivery of innovative and affordable health care. With an estimated worth to USG of $350 million, this 15-‐year alliance is the first of its kind and stands as a model for all other health care systems in the country. It will broadly support the GRMC, the Children’s Hospital of Georgia (CHOG), the GRU Cancer Center, and the health system’s numerous outpatient clinics and will enhance the university’s ability to train and educate health care professionals to serve the needs of four to six million people across Georgia and South Carolina.
11 8 Year Vision Update
October, 2013
INFRASTRUCTURE AND SUPPORT NEEDS To continue to achieve the goals originally outlined in GHSU’s 8-‐year vision in the summer of 2011 and those we’ve embraced since becoming GRU, we needed to reassess our original tuition models, philanthropic endeavors, direction of monies, and infrastructure needs. Tuition Expected increases in enrollment will drive a corresponding increase in tuition revenue and help the institution become more self-‐sustaining. Current tuition revenue totals for GRU modestly exceed budget. In many of our programs, our low tuition and fee structure places us in a good position relative to our peers: We are high value but not the highest cost. However, in other cases, we are actually the lowest cost option, which severely limits our ability to provide needed resources for the educational and training programs in these areas. Our vision includes moving GRU program costs borne by student tuition and fees to the mid-‐range of our peers. Philanthropy The bold vision we have articulated for GRU will require sustained investment at a level that exceeds the public funding historically provided to the institution. Therefore, increasing private investment through more robust philanthropic efforts is key to GRU’s future. Prior to consolidation, ASU and GHSU were collectively raising less than $8 million annually in new cash and pledges from the private sector ($7.1 million in 2011 and $5.9 million in 2012). GRU is entering year three of an eight-‐year comprehensive campaign with a goal of raising $250 million in new cash, pledges, and deferred giving to support the ongoing transformation of GRU and the GR Health System. In order to raise larger gifts over time from current and prospective donors, we have expanded our approach to include deferred giving (such as planned/estate gifts) as is the standard practice according to guidelines published by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). In the first two years of the campaign, GRU raised nearly $50 million, which includes $14.5 million of the $66 million estate gift from Dr. J. Harold Harrison. The balance of the Harrison gift, which will be booked over the next several fiscal years, prospectively puts the campaign total at more than $100 million—positive momentum at this early stage of the campaign. By 2030, we project a sustainable $25 million in annual private support (new cash and pledges) and expect to have grown our endowment to $100 million for scholarships, $10 million for endowed chairs, and $14 million in unrestricted support. Strategic Academic, Research, and Service Development Fund To augment tuition revenues and philanthropy, GRU launched the Strategic Academic, Research, and Service (StARS) Development Fund in 2012, which will seed future growth while ensuring adequate resources for consolidation. This fund, targeted at just over $100 million will help direct new monies toward strategic endeavors that will help maximize return on investment for state dollars. As of June 2013, the StARS fund was $79.1 million in revenue, and with over $64 million of this directed to invest in our strategic endeavors. These endeavors include faculty and researcher recruitment, the establishment of the GRU Leadership Academy, new dean recruits, dental school enrollment growth, health sciences and non-‐health sciences researcher start-‐up funding, and student quality-‐of-‐life projects, including housing, dining, and student activities support. Student Quality-‐of-‐Life Facilities To meet the needs of the campus community, GRU engaged an independent consultant, Brailsford & Dunlavey, in 2012 to assess quality-‐of-‐life services and facilities. The product was the Quality-‐of-‐Life Needs Assessment, developed to better understand the campus’s facility and programmatic needs related to student housing, campus recreation,
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student union, and campus dining at GRU. The report found that GRU’s existing quality-‐of-‐life facilities are insufficient to achieve desired outcomes and impact on enrollment management, campus community, and student development. Current facilities are spread between multiple campus locations in Augusta and are not convenient for broad participation. To meet desired enrollment targets for 2022, GRU anticipates needing approximately 450 additional undergraduate beds and 300 graduate beds (200 to replace existing beds that have far surpassed end of life, plus 100 new beds). Dining and recreation expansion of approximately 80,000 square feet will be necessary to accommodate the growth of the undergraduate population. It is anticipated that facilities will be constructed in a phased manner to meet maximum potential demand. As GRU expands to the desired enrollment of 16,500 students in 2030, proportional scaling for all student quality-‐of-‐life facilities will be necessary to meet new demand. A top priority is to create student housing. Current housing inventory is sufficient for only 10 percent of the GRU student population. Seventy-‐four percent of student quality-‐of-‐life survey respondents from both campus locations said that the provision of housing is important to GRU’s ability to recruit potential students. The capacity and level of Quality-‐of-‐Life programmatic offerings must be enhanced if GRU is to achieve its strategic objectives. Priorities were identified and are shown in Figure 4. Figure 4: Prioritized Quality-‐of-‐Life Implementation Schedule
Research Facilities GRU anticipates doubling the number of funded research faculty by 2030. Currently we have approximately 350,000 net assignable square feet of research space, which will need to increase to approximately 700,000 in order to support projected research growth. A key component of that expansion is a new Cancer Research Building, which was approved by the Governor in the 2013 legislative session and funded at $45 million in FY2014 state general obligation bonds. The new building will provide additional cancer research laboratories, expand our research campus, enhance hiring opportunities, and reinforce our reputation as a leader and innovator in cutting-‐edge cancer research and treatment. It will also allow us to leverage those benefits to increase NIH funding, peer reviewed funding, and private philanthropy. We are in the design phase of this project.
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GRU’s current, aging research facilities will need to be addressed in the coming years, whether through replacement or significant renovation, to continue the projected growth of research efforts. Academic Facilities Projected growth of our academic programs will require additional learning space. The new J. Harold Harrison, M.D. Education Commons building, under construction and scheduled to open in fall 2014, will provide 177,000 square feet of space for health sciences education. (In the 2011 report, it was projected that at least 110,500 square feet of new academic space would be needed.) The late Dr. J. Harold Harrison and his wife, Sue W. Harrison, provided a $10 million leadership gift, which has been augmented with $5 million in donations from area donors, an $8 million gift from the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation, and a generous $42 million allocation in general bond funding from the state of Georgia. Construction of the building, located adjacent to the College of Dental Medicine, began in November 2012, and total cost is projected to be $76.5 million. In early 2013, GRU participated in the USG space utilization study and has implemented new scheduling software to better capture the use of scheduled space for instruction and co-‐curricular learning. Over the next several years, we will continuously evaluate classroom utilization, right size academic facilities, and plan for any expansion in square footage, based on anticipated growth and the utilization targets set by the USG. We anticipate doubling our undergraduate population by 2030, which is estimated to require an additional 100,000 to 150,000 net assignable square feet of learning space.
ECONOMIC IMPACT AND RETURN ON INVESTMENT In FY12, the combined economic impact of GRU’s academic, research, and clinical activities on our Summerville and Health Sciences Campuses, including the Georgia Regents Health System, was more than $2.1 billion in Augusta and more than $12 billion in Georgia (Figure 5). We are on track to meet our projection of a $3.1 billion economic impact by 2020. Figure 5: Economic Impact of GRU Statewide
GRU Economic Impact
12,505
1,200 1,150 Millions
1,100 1,050 1,000
$1,181 11,690
11,956 $1,064
$1,036
950 FY10
FY11 Financial Impact
• •
12,600 12,400 12,200 12,000 11,800 11,600 11,400 11,200
Workforce
(includes GHSU, ASU, and Clinical Branch Campuses)
FY12 Employment Impact
In addition, in FY12 the GR Medical Center contributed 6 ,887 jobs and $ 639M in economic impact. In 2011, the GR Medical Associates contributed about $255 million in economic impact.
14 8 Year Vision Update
October, 2013
CONCLUSION In 2011, GHSU outlined a bold vision and plan for building and sustaining an AHC positioned to compete on a national and international stage. In January 2013 GHSU consolidated with ASU, a proximate public masters-‐level university, to become GRU. Now the fourth broad-‐based research university in Georgia and the state’s only public AHC, GRU has made significant and important progress to fulfill the vision and plan originally presented in the summer of 2011. With continued support from alumni, and state and community leaders, GRU is uniquely positioned to fulfill its bold vision: to become the next great American university, with an immediately recognizable distinction in the biomedical sciences and health professions. We believe that this vision is fully realizable, and will bring with it substantial benefits—better educational quality, experience and opportunities, increased economic impact and jobs creation, improved health care delivery and better health outcomes, and much more—to the citizens of the great state of Georgia.
15 8 Year Vision Update
October, 2013